


Recurring Illusions

by angeltrumpets



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Cannibalism, Chapter 136, Character Death In Dream, Day 5 - Dreaming of Each Other, Graphic Depictions of Eating, Hallucinations, Hidekane Week, Hidekane Week 2018, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 02:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15475434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeltrumpets/pseuds/angeltrumpets
Summary: Kaneki's dreams are something he has to face on a regular basis. His own mind torments him with his worst fears, and having to deal with these nightmares is an inevitability. So it was only a matter of time that Hide would feature as the subject of them.Only Kaneki can't tell what's the dream and what's reality when Hide really does appear.Written for Hidekane Week Day 5 - Dreaming of Each Other





	Recurring Illusions

_I’m seeing things again…_

Sleep was a regular difficulty for Kaneki. When he felt he could, he’d forsake it entirely for a night or two, choosing to train on his own instead. Training at least made him feel like he could get physically stronger to make up for the strength he lacked mentally.

Kaneki was terrified of his own mind.

As if what he would face during waking hours wasn’t bad enough, he just had to be tormented at night as well. It was even worse, since his subconscious could infiltrate through his dreams and make him face the deepest fears within his head. A decent night’s sleep was rare, a full one impossible. But he couldn’t get away with training all night for too long, as he would have to eventually get the sleep necessary to function, especially if he wanted his group to accomplish his goals and find Kanou. Thus, dealing with his nightmares was an inevitability.

So it was only a matter of time that Hide would appear as the subject of them.

The first of the nightmares involving Hide always ended with him dead. Some of the time it would be at the hands of another ghoul, with Kaneki seeing him being impaled repeatedly by a kagune or finding Hide’s body being devoured. Regardless of the specific circumstance, the reasoning for his death from another ghoul was always the same. Kaneki’s inability to do anything to save him. His lack of strength proving how useless he can be. The ultimate failure of Kaneki’s intention to protect the people most important to him.

However, sometimes Kaneki would find that the one who had been the one to slaughter Hide in his dreams was himself. His brain replayed the time when they had survived Nishiki’s attack, when Kaneki had released his kagune for the first time and his starvation had taken over his ability to think clearly, only this time there was no Touka to stop him from lunging at Hide like his entire body was screaming at him to do. Or he would be in a scenario where he wouldn’t even know that the delicious smelling human passing by was even Hide at all, his brain craving human meat so desperately that in the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care about his victim’s identity until it was too late. These dreams would end with Kaneki regaining his senses and finding the body of his best friend savagely torn apart beneath him while Hide’s blood stained Kaneki’s hands and dripped down his chin. The screaming of Kaneki within the dream overlapped with his screams as he woke up.

_It’s an illusion._

Not all of his dreams featuring Hide were so violent. Sometimes Hide showed up in his dreams not as a manifestation of Kaneki’s fears, but as a manifestation of the guilt that had been building up within him for months.

One such dream had Hide standing across from him, unharmed and not in any immediate danger, but with a glare focused at Kaneki.

“So you just up and left without a word,” he had said. “Years of friendship ending without an explanation, just ditched like none of it meant anything to you.”

“Hide, no…” Kaneki didn’t know what to say, because while it was true that he had cut himself off from Hide without any warning, he so badly wanted Hide to know that it was not as he thought. “I have to so I can _protect_ you, Hide.”

“An excuse of it being for my own good, huh?” Hide scoffed. “What is this that you claim to protect me from and how does going off exactly accomplish that? Are you sure you didn’t leave out of your own selfishness?”

This wasn’t Hide. Hide never spoke to him like this for as long as Kaneki had known him, and never would. But Kaneki couldn’t shake the feeling that this could very well be the thoughts that Hide was having towards him since Kaneki had left.

“You don’t have a good answer, do you?”

Kaneki was just barely holding himself back from blurting out everything he had been keeping in to Hide. How different would it be if he had? What would change if Hide knew the truth of what had happened in Kaneki’s life, and the world that Kaneki had to protect him from? But then Kaneki would think of Touka’s threat against Hide if he found out, and Tsukiyama’s attack on Nishiki’s most important human, which would stop him from explaining any of it to Hide.

“I see how it is,” Hide said, and turned away from Kaneki, walking into the distance where there was nothing but empty space until he disappeared, Kaneki unable to reach him.

_It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a dream I’m dreaming_

There was one time that stood out among the rest as not being a nightmare at all. Kaneki might have even called it a good dream, as unbelievable as that sounded. It had only been once, and there were no other dreams that came close to it. Sometimes Kaneki doubted whether he had really been lucky enough to have one moment of happiness in his mind through all the terrors.

He was at the park, the one that had been the place for him and Hide to be away from everyone and everything since they were younger. Hide was sitting beside him, as the two of them sat alone under what was a starry night sky. It was quiet. Neither of them were talking, just sitting in each other’s presence.

It had been so long since Kaneki had felt like this. Anteiku may have been a refuge for him since becoming a ghoul, a safe, peaceful environment, but it wasn’t home for him in the way that Hide was. Hide was warmth and familiarity and a promise of having someone who knew and understood him like no one else.

Hide turned to face him. He reached out towards Kaneki and cupped his face in his hands.

“I love you,” he said softly. “No matter what. You know that, right?”

Kaneki knew it was true within this moment, within this dream at least. The dream was here to show him exactly what he wanted after all.

“I love you too, Hide.”

Words that he would probably never again get the chance to say in real life.

Hide slowly pulled Kaneki in closer, their lips meeting in a gentle kiss. Hide’s lips were soft, fitting perfectly with Kaneki’s own.

When they finished their kiss, Kaneki lay down, resting his head on Hide’s lap. Hide gently ran his fingers through Kaneki’s hair, which was black instead of the white he had been struggling to get used to. Hide hummed as they watched the night sky, stopping momentarily to point out a shooting star as it went by.

Is this something they could have had if Kaneki’s life had not ended up like this?

_It happens to me all the time._

Of course, Kaneki would’ve been foolish to think that he could get away with a happy dream. Soon afterwards, he was reminded that there was no easy escape from his nightmares.

He was back at the ghoul restaurant, attacking every last ghoul that was there. He leapt in every direction, the only one with any amount of control in the chaos that had erupted among the ghouls’ panic. One by one he finished them off, the sounds that echoed around the restaurant being gradually cut-off until there was only silence left after the last body fell to the ground. Kaneki then brought himself down to the ground to feed off some of the bodies, especially those of more powerful ghouls with stronger kagune and even kakuja. It was foul, but necessary if he wanted to get the strength he desired. He ate in an animalistic manner, without a care of how loud or messy he was, discarding the parts of the bodies that wouldn’t be of as much benefit to him. He needed to eat a lot and he needed to get through it quickly.

It was then that he had heard a gasp.

Kaneki looked up to see Hide standing a distance away from him, eyes fixed on what Kaneki was doing in horror.

“H-Hide…!” he called out, as he stood up from the floor and the corpse.

“Get away from me…”  

Kaneki took a step forward.

“I said get away!” Hide yelled as he took steps back.

Hide may have been yelling with his expression disgusted, but his eyes were reflecting nothing but complete fear as they looked at Kaneki. It was worse than Kaneki had imagined Hide could possibly look at him, and it destroyed him.

“Don’t come anywhere near me! You’re a monster!”

Kaneki had woken up a wreck, tears on his face. While it was a massive relief that it had been a dream, it only solidified the idea that Hide finding out he was a ghoul was something he could never let happen.

Which was why he still couldn’t tell whether it was a dream or not when he did.

_If it’s not…H-H-H-Hide will know… that…I’m…I’m_

Hide was there, talking to him, approaching him, crouching in front of him.

Or was he. Just a moment ago, Rize and Yamori had been crawling out from the sewer waters and grasping at Kaneki. They had been taking over his whole body, hands grabbing at his legs, up his torso, his arms, to his neck and his face. Kaneki’s kagune had been flailing out of his control as he panicked, the shell of his kakuja also forming over his face. Through all of Kaneki’s thrashing to escape it, he could barely even tell which direction was which. The gaping holes in his body he had received from the earlier fight did not make it any easier to keep himself from slipping.

Surely Hide wouldn’t be here when he was like this. It had to be another hallucination, Kaneki’s mind showing him exactly what he didn’t want when he was already so far gone.  Soon enough Hide was bound to say the words that Kaneki feared more than anything, just like his dreams from before.

If Hide’s presence here was true, then Kaneki didn’t think he could handle a killing blow like that. Hide couldn’t be here to see Kaneki like this.

“I already knew, man!”

Kaneki became frozen in shock. Of all the possible things Hide could have said upon finding him, Kaneki had never considered that as being within the realm of possibility.  

“Who cares about that? Let’s just go home already.”

Hide placed his hand on Kaneki’s shoulder. For that brief moment, Kaneki felt grounded as Hide’s warm hand held him together, anchoring him to the piece of his humanity he had left.

It was short-lived though, as the pain returned and shot through Kaneki’s whole body and he was back in his previous state. He threw himself out of Hide’s reach and fell forward into the sewer water as his own screams merged with the voices pounding in his head.

Meanwhile, Hide did not step away.

“I’m hearing voices, Hide…” Kaneki managed to choke out. “Run… or I’ll…”

Hide wasn’t listening to Kaneki’s pleas. He didn’t make a move to leave, instead staying and looking at Kaneki in concern.

“I want to save you,” he said.

Hide’s hand was on Kaneki’s shoulder once again.

“Eat me.”

This had to be a dream. Hide couldn’t be saying what Kaneki was hearing. Kaneki’s perception was making him think Hide was offering himself out of Kaneki’s need to eat and regenerate.

“Hide… what are you saying?”

“There’s this crazy guy just beyond here,” Hide said. “You can’t run. You will… lose there. You might even die.”

There was no hint of anything less than total gravity in Hide’s voice. He sounded serious. There was no hesitation.

“That’s why…” Hide brought himself even closer to Kaneki.

Kaneki became more aware of Hide’s scent.

“I’m gonna show you that you’re worth saving. Worth living.” Hide’s other hand was placed on Kaneki’s other shoulder. “Can you give it your all just one more time?”

Kaneki had several reasons to do it. Kaneki’s fear of Hide’s rejection had been proven false; Hide knew what he was, and yet he was staying by him. He was giving Kaneki full permission to eat him, outright telling him to, to give Kaneki the best chance at survival. Hide's scent was right there, tempting him to go ahead. But Kaneki couldn’t let himself do that. He steeled himself and refused to move even slightly forward.

Kaneki heard a heavy breath before he felt himself being pulled in by his shoulders and Hide’s face became even more close to his own.

He felt the pressure on his lips before he understood what Hide was doing. The pressure was soft, and fit perfectly against his own mouth.  

He never got to register what was happening any further than that, because it was then that he became consumed by his overpowered senses, not only from the scent, but now the taste as well, which took away the last of any rational thought Kaneki may have had.

It was sweet… so sweet….

The taste in his mouth was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. What had he even eaten since becoming a ghoul? Other ghouls? Parts of the dead human bodies that were found and distributed through Anteiku? Cannibalism had been out of necessity rather than taste, and the meat he had eaten from Anteiku felt rubbish and stale in comparison to _this_.

The taste of this was powerful, and it was all he cared about now.

At first, Kaneki ran his tongue along what it could find, exploring as much as he could. His tongue was just as surrounded by warmth as it was by the taste. Kaneki felt his heart pounding harder and quickening in speed. His breathing became faster, and he felt it meet with other breaths that were not his own but just as heavy. There was movement against his own tongue, but he didn’t think to wonder on what exactly it was. All he was focused on was getting _more_.

He bit down.

He wasn’t sure what he bit, but whatever it was gave him the first taste of the blood that entered into his own mouth. Kaneki heard a pained noise, felt the vibrations of the sound reach his lips, but he did not direct his attention towards it, instead thinking only of not letting a single drop of the blood go to waste. It was even sweeter and fresher than what he was tasting before, and he did not have enough of it.  

He bit down harder, going for more of a chunk this time. There was another pained noise as he did so, much sharper and louder this time.

Kaneki chewed. The texture of the meat was perfect. As he ate, he could almost feel the meat healing him, recovering the energy he hadn’t had left in him before and putting together the parts of his body faster than he had ever regenerated.

With his recovered strength, he surged forward, pushing what he was eating down onto the ground as he positioned himself on top. He was moving solely on instinct, not thinking about what he was doing, only that he was doing it, biting down on whatever he came in contact with and losing himself completely in the taste.

He didn’t remember drifting off into darkness, but he found himself waking up from it.

He was still in the sewers. He was alone, with no voices ringing in his head nor any visions of anything reaching for him. As he got up off the ground, he found that many of his injuries had healed, with his torso back in one piece. Hide was nowhere to be seen.

Kaneki would have thought it was another dream, but the lingering taste of sweet blood in his mouth told him otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Would you believe me if I said that I originally intended my contribution for this Hidekane Week to be a lot more happier and lighthearted? Before I knew it, it had spiraled out of my control and this is what happened. 
> 
> It's up to you whether :re happens afterwards in this fic or not. 
> 
> I can't believe the last time I wrote something for Hidekane Week was in 2015!!! I always wanted to write something for the next two years, but never managed to get something out. So I'm really glad that I was able to get this done for this year! 
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr at [hideyoshineki](https://hideyoshineki.tumblr.com/)


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